'And Just Like That' star Karen Pittman clarifies that her character Nya isn't teaching Miranda how to be a woke white woman: 'This isn't going to go back to a trope'
- "And Just Like That" star Karen Pittman says her character Dr. Nya Wallace isn't falling into a "trope" onscreen.
- On the "SATC" reboot, Dr. Wallace often corrects Miranda, who's trying too hard to be woke.
You don't have to scroll too far down the Twitter hashtag for the "Sex and the City" revival "And Just Like That" to see that the disappointment in Miranda is abundant and loud.
One of the main reasons has to do with Miranda's (Cynthia Nixon) desperately misguided attempts to win the favor of her new law professor Dr. Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman).
When she's not hanging out with longtime girlfriends, Carrie and Charlotte, she's at school, making cringy comments about Black hairstyles and making non-problematic incidents — like when Dr. Wallace lost her ID card and couldn't get into the university — more problematic by trying to save the day.
Despite the fact that some Twitter users have said, "Miranda's obsession with political correctness is cringy and very out of character," actress Karen Pittman, who portrays Dr. Wallace, asked critics to give it time for their relationship to unfold.
"Have some confidence in me that this isn't going to go back to a trope that you already know," Pittman said, referencing a narrative that Black women are often expected to take on the burden of educating white women about race.
Although Pittman has a different view of Dr. Wallace and Miranda's relationship on screen, she noted that if there is truth her character is going beyond her professorial duties to teach Miranda, "I think that's a bit of slice of life."
"We didn't entirely ring out the authenticity of what a relationship between a Black woman and a white woman could look like," Pittman continued. "There'll be a lot more that you'll learn about Nya as this story goes on, and it won't just be through the filter of her relationship with Miranda."
"It'll be through her relationship with her husband," she hinted.
Pittman said by episode 10, her storyline will make much more sense and will be more well-rounded.
New episodes of "And Just Like That" air Thursdays on HBO Max.